This sucks. I thought Norwood was doing a nice job to date all things considered and bringing in a new A.D. at this time brings up a whole host of questions. I guess the only sliver of a silver lining here is that Norwood resigned and admitted to the wrongdoing and that there won't be any severance package (although sometimes we find out about people in these situations ending up with money well after the fact). Norwood certainly isn't the first person to do some really stupid things while drunk and he won't be the last. Hopefully we don't find out that this was a pattern of behavior throughout his time as A.D.
I worry about the ramifications of this news far more for basketball than football. For the short term, Jerry Kill has built up enough good will that he's going to be the football coach regardless of his record. I certainly don't think Kill has done enough to have a major say in who the next A.D. is, but that's probably a topic for another day. With Kill entrenched for the short term, and if we get the type of A.D. I hope we get, Pitino's situation becomes very dicey. I don't think many people who are truly qualified to be an AD at a school that wants to compete at a major level are going to be satisfied having coaches in both major sports be guys that he/she did not hire personally...especially if neither is overwhelmingly successful. From Pitino's side, unless Mike Ellis is retained and the new A.D. makes him extremely comfortable, I don't see how he sticks around if he has another option in the next year or two. Another bad season this year and the new A.D. might want to make a move, while a surprisingly good season would have Pitino looking to move to a place where he'd be the A.D.'s "guy". Obviously the ideal scenario is that Pitino and the new A.D. hit it off and Pitino has a great season and is our coach for years to come. Unfortunately, "ideal" and "Gopher sports" have never went together in my lifetime.